As the poultry industry, and particularly the growing of chickens has evolved, various automatic feeding and watering devices have developed whereby the chickens are fed and watered by means of automatic systems rather than manually by the chicken producer as was formerly the practice. Automatic watering systems have developed along the lines of U.S. Letters Pat. Nos. 3,034,481 and 3,108,573. In such systems a watering trough is suspended from the roof or attached at one end to a standard with the other end being loosely received by and operatively connected to what will be referred to in this application as a "metering housing". In such a metering housing, the free end of the trough is held, and includes a valve which operates responsive to the weight of the water in the trough to turn on and off the incoming supply of water. When the trough is relatively empty, and therefore light, the valve opens letting fresh water into the trough. When the trough has been filled to a desired level and weight, the weight of the water in the trough will activate the valve to close it, thereby shutting off the supply of water. In another system a circular pan is suspended and water automatically metered thereinto through a similar valve set-up.
Various systems have been developed to be used in conjunction with such automatic watering systems to automatically, periodically flush out the trough as it becomes dirty as a result of chickens perching on the edges of the trough, walking through the trough, and because of other contaminating habits and conditions. Such trough cleaning apparatuses and methods are described and illustrated in U.S. Letters Pat. No. 3,150,638; 2,865,328; and 3,292,588. While trough cleaning is a desirable result to be achieved because otherwise it may lead to poultry sickness or mortality, another problem exists in the aforedescribed automatic watering systems which, to the knowledge of applicant has not been solved.
This problem is the periodic flushing of the valve or metering housing through which the water passes on its way to the trough. Generally, there is provided an upper port into which the water is initially delivered, and usually, but not always, there is provided a small screen or filtering mechanism in the path of the water through the housing. The upper port collects and prevents debris which may be present in the supply line from entering into the trough in the first place. Periodically the upper port and screen, if used, of such metering housings or the valves therein have to be cleaned because loose debris and material becomes deposited within the mesh wire of this screen, thereby slowing and eventually shutting off the supply of water. Such cleaning procedures are now very time consuming since the valves have to be completely disassembled, cleaned, then reassembled. Coupled with the number of water systems on a poultry grower's farm, the problem may even be accentuated.